The defendant appealed against his convictions for sexual and other serious assaults. He complained of the admission in evidence of previous convictions and the methods used by him.
Held: The appeal failed: ‘Judge Brown dealt with the previous convictions in a manner in respect of which no possible objection can be taken. He did not go into the details of the previous convictions. He explained why they were relevant in a way which properly drew the jury’s attention to their significance. The appellant had given evidence and had been asked about his account of the previous convictions. He qualified matters contained in the methods used on the documents which had been admitted, but they were as to specific items appearing in those statements and not to their generality. The jury heard the appellant’s explanation. They were aware of his evidence as to what had happened. There was no oral evidence before them to contradict his account of his previous convictions . . the evidence against the appellant, quite apart from the previous convictions, was overwhelming. Four different complainants, unknown to each other, gave an account of assaults taking place which were of a similar nature and which occurred over a short period of time.’
Judges:
Lord Woolf of Barnes LCJ, Goldring, Walker JJ
Citations:
[2005] EWCA Crim 2030, (2005) 169 JP 441
Links:
Statutes:
Criminal Justice Act 2003 101(1)(d) 117
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Lunkulu and Others v Regina CACD 7-Aug-2015
Request for leave to appeal out of time against convictions for murder and against sentence. Much evidence had been circumstantial, and the defendants alleged bias in the summing up, and complained of the admission of bad character evidence.
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Criminal Evidence
Updated: 04 July 2022; Ref: scu.235791
